


dreams tied up in roses

by nicole_writes



Series: the pressures of love and family [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Complicated politics, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Mild Angst, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Sylvain Jose Gautier's Parents' Bad Parenting, That Darned Crest System, Wedding Jitters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26635921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: “Marriages conducted in Garland Moon have a higher chance of happiness across the course of the whole marriage,” Ingrid explains plainly. “It’s an old Faerghus superstition.”“I didn’t think you were one to buy into the old superstitions,” Dorothea points out. She’s right, but Ingrid can’t admit that.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: the pressures of love and family [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945132
Comments: 19
Kudos: 50





	dreams tied up in roses

**Author's Note:**

> This was a mistake. Oops.

On the morning of her wedding, Ingrid throws up in the bathroom. She had not eaten dinner the night before so she mostly just heaves unpleasantly, feeling her stomach spasm. Her throat burns when she is finished and she manages, on shaking legs, to reach for a glass of water which helps some, but not a lot. 

She stares at herself in the ornate mirror when she’s done and she can’t help but notice the dark circles around her eyes and how sunken her cheekbones look. She’s boney and small with packed, wiry muscle that is not at all fitting for a noblewoman of her standing. Most women are soft with uncalloused hands and unscarred bodies and thick lips meant for smiling and kissing their rich husbands. 

Ingrid pinches her lips together and lays out cosmetics. They’re still meagre compared to most noblewomen, but she’s gotten pretty good with the few supplies that she has practiced with. First, she applies the smoothing powder to even out her skin tone and hide her tired eyes and the scar on her cheek received from a swordsman in Fhirdiad. 

Then she takes the darker shade of powder and gently outlines her cheekbone, giving it enough definition that it looks soft, but still pronounced in the way that Dorothea had taught her years ago. The light shade goes on the top of her cheekbone and it’s a little sparkly because Annette had insisted. 

She picks a faint, but still warm brown tone for her eye shadow and her hand trembles as she dabs it along her eyelid. She wets the tip of one finger to wipe away the excess until she’s satisfied with the way that it looks. She pokes herself in the eye three times before she gets the nice thin line of pencil around her eyes to match the shadow. 

Ingrid’s choice of lipstick is purely sentimental. It had been one of the last things he had given her in their formal courting process once he had been abundantly clear that he hadn’t been trying to change her. It’s a simple shade of pink, but it’s more expensive than most things that she would have dared to purchase for herself. 

After she has fixed up her face, she takes another look in the mirror. She looks more polished now,  _ nobler _ , and she takes another sip of water to wash down the faint, lingering burn of bile in her throat. She smoothes out her nightgown and returns to her room. 

The dress laid out on her bed is a simple green thing: just a temporary gown, until she’s fitted into the extravagant, over the top wedding dress that her soon to be mother-in-law had insisted upon. Ingrid manages to get herself dressed without calling for the assistance of a lady’s maid. She is about to leave her chambers when the door opens outward and Ingrid nearly collides with Dorothea who is on her way into the room. 

“Oh! Ingrid!” Dorothea exclaims. She grabs Ingrid by the forearms and gently pushes her back into the room, beaming. “You look beautiful.”

Ingrid forces a smile back. “Thank you,” she replies. 

Dorothea’s eyebrows crease and she lifts a hand to Ingrid’s face, rubbing her thumb across the corner of Ingrid’s eye, correcting a smudge in her eyeshadow that she had evidently missed. 

“There,” Dorothea confirms. “Now you’re perfect.”

Ingrid squeezes Dorothea’s hand gratefully. “Thank you.”

Dorothea drops her hands down and plays with the shoulders of Ingrid’s green dress, pulling them open more to expose more of her collar. Ingrid shifts, pulling out of her friend’s touch and Dorothea’s lips press together as Ingrid steps away from her. 

“Ingrid?” 

“It’s nothing,” Ingrid says quickly. 

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Dorothea argues. “What is it?”

Ingrid turns away, walking across the extravagant room to the towering window in the corner. She is staying in the western wing of the castle and that means she can’t see the sun as it rises, but she can look out across the sprawling gardens below her window. The height of it makes her feel dizzy, despite her years of training on flying mounts. 

“Just wedding jitters,” Ingrid lies quietly, not turning back to face her friend. 

She doesn’t dare let Dorothea look into her face while she lies because the songstress would call her out without a shred of hesitation. Ingrid has always been a terrible liar. 

Dorothea’s heels click on the stone floor as she approaches. “Alright,” she murmurs. Ingrid looks down as Dorothea curls her hand into Ingrid’s. “If you want to stop lying to me, I’d be happy to listen to you.”

Ingrid bites the inside of her cheek and doesn’t reply. 

“Shouldn’t this be a happy occasion, Ingrid? I know your other half is certainly more excited than you seem to be,” Dorothea continues when Ingrid doesn’t reply. 

“We were going to get married in the fall,” Ingrid says, fixing her gaze on the elaborate rose garden that she can see from the window. “The colours would have been beautiful and the weather would have been just cool enough for coats.”

“This far north?” Dorothea scoffs. “We all would have been bundled up.” Dorothea’s hand squeezes Ingrid’s. “Why the change to summer then? Garland Moon doesn’t really seem like it’s your speed.”

“Marriages conducted in Garland Moon have a higher chance of happiness across the course of the whole marriage,” Ingrid explains plainly. “It’s an old Faerghus superstition.”

“I didn’t think you were one to buy into the old superstitions,” Dorothea points out. She’s right, but Ingrid can’t admit that. 

“Plus, if you give it ten months, a child born in the Great Tree Moon is said to be blessed with strength in the goddess’s light,” Ingrid says, trying to keep her tone from growing too bitter. 

Dorothea drops her hand and then Ingrid is staring into her friend’s face as Dorothea steps between Ingrid and the window, eyes narrowed and expression tight. 

“Ingrid Galatea, what the hell does that mean? You are the  _ last _ person to marry for stupid monthly superstitions about your potential, stupid children.”

Ingrid stares at Dorothea, trying to keep her face plain. “They’re not my family’s traditions,” she says coolly. 

Dorothea grabs her arm and pulls her back to the bed. She pushes her down by her shoulders until she sits and then sits beside her. “Ingrid, what the hell is going on here? You want to do this, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Ingrid snaps. “I want to marry Sylvain, I just-”

Ingrid is cut off by the opening of the door to her bedroom. Instead of a welcome interruption like Dorothea had been, the woman standing in the doorway makes nausea curl in Ingrid’s stomach again. It is Sylvain’s mother, the Margravine of House Gautier with her sharp blue eyes and elegant strawberry blonde hair. 

The Margravine looks between Ingrid and Dorothea and where they’re sitting on the bed and her lips curl into a smile that is laced with hidden poisons. In the year that she and Sylvain have been courting, Ingrid has grown to recognize his mother’s hidden tricks and she knows that Dorothea is more than capable of seeing through a stuffy noblewoman’s façade. 

“Hello, Ingrid,” the Margravine greets thinly. She offers no greeting to Dorothea and Ingrid sees irritation flicker across the songstress’s expression. “I was hoping I might have a word with you before you’re stolen away for the day.”

Dorothea stands up quickly. “I’ll see you later, Ingrid,” she says. She squeezes Ingrid’s hand once in farewell before she breezes past Sylvain’s mother and Ingrid is left alone with the woman. 

She stands up but doesn’t walk over to the Margravine. “What can I help you with, My Lady?” Ingrid asks politely, pushing down the nausea that turns in her stomach. 

The Margravine’s painted lips curl into a smile that poorly conceals her displeasure. “You should be careful what company you keep, my dear. Remember that you will become a member of my family today and that your interactions affect the image of House Gautier as well as House Galatea now.”

Anger bubbles in Ingrid’s chest. “Dorothea Arnault is a famous and well-loved operatic performer from Enbarr who is in line to become the Queen-Consort of Brigid. She is a dear friend of both myself and your son’s.”

“She is born of common blood,” the Margravine replies simply. “She bears no Crest and she sings a penny song for whatever coin the nobility deems her worthy of.”

Ingrid feels like screaming. She has been playing this tentative game with Sylvain’s parents for a year and she feels like tearing all her hair out. Their antiquated views and values have always bothered her, but now they make her want to break something with her bare hands. 

“Can I help you with anything, My Lady?” Ingrid asks, more forcibly. “I believe you said it yourself. We are short on time before I have to ready myself.”

The Margravine’s smile is as venomous as a snake’s. “I just wanted to make sure that you have been well. The future of my House and my son lie in your hands. I wanted to make sure that you are well taken care of.”

Ingrid knows that she is talking about the future children that she is supposed to bear. They are less than a year from the ending of a five-year-long war and Sylvain’s mother can only see her for the fertility of her body, for her Crest, and for the potential that she may bring House Gautier more Crested Heirs. 

“It’s a terrible shame that your own mother could not be with us today,” the Margravine begins and Ingrid’s temper finally snaps at the mention of her own mother. 

“Get out,” she says forcefully. “I am  _ well looked after _ and you will not invoke my mother’s name to me today. I wish to be alone now,  _ My Lady _ .”

Sylvain’s mother’s carefully veiled distaste becomes more visible as she steps back from the force behind Ingrid’s words. Her lip curls and she looks Ingrid up and down. Ingrid stands up and brushes out a wrinkle in her dress. She keeps her head held high and dares the Margravine to go against her own wishes. 

“Of course, my dear,” the woman says after a moment. “Though I must say, I do worry what kind of guidance you would deem fit to give to my son once you are married. It is a woman’s duty to know her place and I’m afraid your father never quite made you understand that.”

She smooths out her own dress, Gautier red and gold, before she vanishes out of the room and the door closes behind her. Ingrid feels like crying and screaming and throwing something. She sits back down on the bed and takes a deep breath, her hands trembling in her lap from a mixture of anger and despair. 

She closes her eyes and bites her lip as she feels tears well up in her eyes. She flattens her palms against the fabric of her dress as she breathes slowly, trying to get a hold of herself. She is signing up for this kind of scrutiny and verbal battle for the rest of her life and she can’t help but feel like she is in way too far over her head. 

Ingrid has always been someone who knows how to handle herself on a battlefield. She can manage a debate just as well because those words are straight forward and people say what is on their mind. The murky waters of political encounters amongst nobility have never been somewhere Ingrid has felt welcome, much less proficient.

She and Felix have that in common. Dimitri fumbles sometimes too, but he has been groomed much more vigorously for that kind of environment and it’s harder to offend the King of Faerghus and the united continent than it is to make barbed comments to a Crested heir of a dirt-poor noble house. 

In the time she has spent around his parents, Ingrid understands now why Sylvain has such a silver tongue and a way with subtle manipulation and back-handed compliments. It had developed as a necessity due to his own upbringing. 

Ingrid takes a deep breath and she opens her eyes, staring at her hands in her lap. It’s that moment, right before she can tear her nails through the skirt of the dress, that there is a knock on her door announcing her third visitor of the day. 

Ingrid stands up quickly and hurries to the door, prepared to dismiss whoever has come to see her. She doesn’t really want to speak to anyone right now, not after the conversation she had just had. She opens the door and all of her plans go out the window as she finds Felix looking uncomfortable and uncertain. 

He is wearing a dress coat fit for the Duke of Fraldarius and his hair has been tamed back into something respectable for the occasion. A lump swells in her throat as she can only picture his brother in his place because dressed like this, Felix is the spitting image of Glenn. 

“Felix,” she says faintly. 

“I look like him,” Felix says. “I,” he trails off, hurt flickering through amber eyes. “I don’t want to look like him, but I know that I do. I didn’t want to spend the money to get anything new made and I didn’t have anything nice enough for the occasion. My father’s things wouldn’t fit me, but it only took a few alterations to make this fit.”

Ingrid realizes then why he looks so much like Glenn. It’s because he’s wearing the same coat that Glenn had worn to Dimitri’s birthday the last year before the Tragedy of Duscur. He’s literally wearing his brother on his back and Ingrid wraps her arms around Felix, pulling him into a sudden and fierce hug. 

Felix tenses, but his arms curl around her after a moment. Ingrid buries her face in his chest and exhales shakily. He doesn’t push her back and Ingrid holds him for as long as she dares before his hand cups the back of her head and carefully brushes through her short hair. The touch is enough to make her tense and she pulls back, quickly retracting her arms. 

“What are you doing here, Felix?” she asks. “Aren’t you Sylvain’s best man? Shouldn’t you be helping him with that?”

Felix frowns. “I was about to head over to see Sylvain when I ran into Dorothea. She told me that I was needed up here.” He takes in her now-wrinkled green dress that is decidedly not her wedding dress. “Shouldn’t you be wearing white?” he asks bluntly. 

Ingrid looks down. “Not yet. No point in wrinkling the dress before the ceremony even gets underway, is there?”

“I know that Sylvain’s mother was here,” Felix interrupts her attempt at deflection. Ingrid tenses and she knows that she can’t lie to him now. “What did she say to you?”

“The same thing she always does,” Ingrid mumbles. 

Felix sighs heavily. “Look, if it’s anything like what she says to Sylvain or even remotely close to what Sylvain’s father says to him, then you need to ignore her.”

Ingrid brushes a piece of her hair back. “It doesn’t bother me.”

“That’s a lie,” Felix cuts in. “I know you, Ingrid. I know when something bothers you and I  _ know you. _ ” He peers past her into the extravagant room that she is staying in. “House Gautier is a special brand of fucked up.”

Ingrid presses her lips together. “Felix, I’m fine.”   


“You’re clearly not,” he pushes. He steps back from the doorway. “Come on.” 

Ingrid blinks. “What?”

“Come on,” Felix says again. 

She frowns. “I have to stay here. I only have a few more hours before I have to get ready for the ceremony.”

Felix reaches out, taking her hand. His hands are rough and calloused from years of sword-fighting. “You have plenty of time for a walk,” he grumbles. 

Ingrid lets him pull her along. She slides her hand up until it rests in the crook of his arm and she takes a deep breath, trying to calm her spinning head. Felix guides her down the hall in the west wing past many of the other guest chambers that are occupied by wedding guests here to celebrate with her. 

One of the doors opens as she and Felix walk past it and Ingrid spies a young woman maybe a year her junior with beautiful black hair and blue eyes that narrow as she and Felix walk past. Ingrid almost turns back to her, but Felix grips her hand tightly over her elbow and increases their pace, urging them past. 

“Don’t,” he mutters. “That’s Victoria Gideon. She’s here for the pageantry, not because she has any respect for you or Sylvain. If she had it her way, she’d be the one marrying Sylvain.”

“What?” Ingrid questions, keeping her voice down. She can still feel the noblewoman staring after them with a burning distaste.

“Her father was in talks with Margrave Gautier before you two were engaged,” Felix murmurs. “Sylvain’s father approved you over her.”

“Because of my Crest,” she says faintly. 

Felix doesn’t reply, but she knows that she is right. The Gideon family distantly carries the Crest of Charon, but it is far from a consistent measure in their family lines. Ingrid tightens her grip on Felix’s arm reflexively as they round a corner and start crossing the main corridor of the castle, heading to the eastern side. 

“That’s not why we’re together,” she continues faintly, almost as if she’s reassuring herself more than Felix. “But I’m sure it’s the only reason that his parents have allowed us to wed.”

The summer sun casts a strange glow over them as they walk towards the eastern wing. The large stained glass window bearing the Crest of Gautier augments some of the light, but it still has that beautiful golden morning glow to it. 

“Sylvain loves you,” Felix says after a moment. “And I know you love him. The benefits that both of your Houses reap from your wedding were the furthest thing from your mind when you got engaged. Everyone who is anyone important knows that,” Felix says firmly. 

Ingrid swallows. “But the rest of the world just sees me as a silly social-climbing girl marrying into higher nobility,” she says bitterly. 

Felix, normally, would have scolded her for even voicing that concern, but she knows he’s been fending off more than a few of Sylvain’s former suitors who have turned their eyes to the Duke of Fraldarius. Still, she’s a bit surprised that the only reaction her self-deprecating comment rings from Felix is a displeased twitch of an eyebrow. She bites her lip and focuses back on where Felix seems to be leading her. 

With a jolt, she realizes that they are in the most extravagant wing of Castle Gautier where she knows the Master bedroom is, as well as the Lady’s suite and Sylvain’s own quarters. She is about to protest to Felix when he stops walking abruptly in front of a heavy oak door that Ingrid recognizes.

“He loves you,” Felix says quietly. He leans forward and presses his lips to Ingrid’s forehead and her breath catches. The gesture is simple and affectionate and it betrays all of Felix’s complicated emotions towards her but most importantly, it affirms to Ingrid that he loves her too. 

She squeezes Felix’s hand. “I love you too. You may not be my brother by law, but, Felix,” she murmurs.

“I know,” he says simply. She has been his sister for more than a few years now, marriage to Glenn or not. 

Felix drops her hand and steps back, leaving her standing in front of the door alone. He nods to her curtly and then he turns and walks away. Ingrid watches him disappear down the hall for a moment before she turns to the heavy, imposing door in front of her. She thinks about knocking for a moment, but a tense fear in her stomach that her knock would be heard by either of Sylvain’s parents scares that thought away and she tries the handle instead. 

The door is unlocked and she pushes it open, slipping inside, before she closes it and turns the lock, sealing herself inside. 

Sylvain is standing across the room, wearing a dress shirt and slacks, staring out his window towards the horizon. He doesn’t seem to have acknowledged her quiet entry, so Ingrid takes a moment to admire the figure that he cuts. Sylvain has always been handsome and Ingrid is thankful that the war had not fractured his beauty, only tempered it into something new. Something that makes her stomach warm as she admires him. 

He must feel her gaze because his head turns and his eyes lock on her. His eyebrows rise and his mouth forms around her name as he whispers it quietly. Then he frowns, looking confused. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks quietly. “Shouldn’t you be,” he trails off, taking in her green dress. 

Ingrid runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck and yanking him against her. She’s probably ruining his neatly pressed shirt, but Sylvain clings to her like a lifeline in return and she finds that for the moment, appearance is the furthest thing from her mind. She leans back just a bit and steals a hard, warm kiss from him. 

Sylvain returns the kiss on instinct and when she pulls back, he blinks at her like a lost foal and she giggles to herself, lifting a hand to touch his face affectionately. 

“Ingrid,” he says. “Is everything okay?” 

He lifts a hand of his own and brushes her hair back, curling a strand of it around his finger with an idle movement. He holds her tightly against him, not letting her squirm away, and Ingrid can feel the warmth radiating from his chest. 

“No,” she replies. She doesn’t lie to him, never has.

Sylvain’s face twists with concern. “Who said something?” he asks roughly, sounding offended. 

“Your mother, but I handled her.”

Sylvain looks guilty. “Goddess, Ingrid, I’m sorry. I told her to leave you alone and I guess I just hoped that she might, today of all days.”

Ingrid smooths out a crease on his forehead with her thumb. “What did she say to you?”

“The usual,” he mutters. “Family stuff. You know how it is.”

“I’m starting to.”

Sylvain closes his eyes and leans his face down until their foreheads rest against each other. It can’t be a comfortable position with their height difference, but he says nothing for a long minute. Ingrid swallows and keeps gently stroking his cheek with her thumb. Sylvain finally leans away from her and Ingrid spies a tiny bit of fair-skinned makeup that has clung to his skin. 

She shifts, rubbing it away as Sylvain stares at her. He kisses her before she can finish her job and she melts into him, letting her arms fall back around his neck. The kiss lingers, warm and slow and Ingrid’s toes curl in her shoes. Sylvain’s hands drift from her face to her shoulders to her waist to her hips and then Ingrid pulls back before he can get carried away. 

Sylvain laughs faintly at her. “Sorry.”   
  
“Don’t be.”

She can feel the warmth of his palms through the green dress. A part of her wishes she had ripped it back in her room. It would have been a sign of defiance against the Gautier family and a sign of her independence. 

“You look beautiful,” Sylvain murmurs quietly. “I’m sorry you had to deal with my mother this morning.”

“Dorothea and Felix had me covered,” she explains. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does,” Sylvain argues. “It’s going to matter every day for the rest of our lives.” He winces. “That is, if you still want to spend the rest of your life shackled to a man with a broken reputation and a House that’s not worth saving.”

“Sylvain,” she says, her tone firm. “I love you. I want to be with  _ you _ . Not your House or your family. I want to be with you. I want to wake up with you every day and to love you.” Her voice breaks at the end of the sentence and she sees a tear glimmer in the corner of Sylvain’s eyes. 

“I wish it wasn’t like this,” he says. “I wish there were no obligations, no pressures, nothing. We could have been married last fall like we wanted and we could go riding and there would be no Crests and no politics and no gossip to hold us back.”

“You sound so sure,” she replies, smoothing out a wrinkle in the collar of his shirt. “You say it like it’s easy to throw it all away.”

He laughs. “No, I quite imagine it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but Ingrid, I would do it all in a heartbeat for you. I would do anything for you.”

“You fought your father for me, didn’t you?” she asks. She has never asked him this before, even if she has suspected it for some time. 

Sylvain looks guilty, but he nods. “He wanted House Gideon, but I wanted you. I’ve only ever wanted you.”

She thinks of his time spent chasing skirts when he was young and she smiles fondly. “That’s not entirely true.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, “but I was stupid then. Blind and stupid.” He steals another kiss from her. 

“I’m probably the last person your father would have wanted you to marry. Galatea has nothing, Sylvain. The only thing he gets out of this arrangement is another chance of having a Crested grandchild.”

Sylvain looks angry for a moment and Ingrid feels suddenly scared that she had overstepped. She opens her mouth to argue, but he just kisses her again, harder and pushing until she tips her head back and falls into his arms. He holds her up as he pulls away, breathing hard. 

“I don’t care what my father or my mother thinks of you. I think you’re beautiful. I don’t care that you’re not soft or pampered like those other noble girls because I am in love with you, Ingrid.” He kisses her again. “I don’t want you to be like them.”

Ingrid slides a hand up into his hair and pulls him down, kissing him again. “Okay,” she breathes against his lips. 

The kiss doesn’t solve their problems. It doesn’t make the issue of Sylvain’s parents and the noble society that they’re deeply embroiled in just vanish into thin air, but it gives her a moment where she can breathe and all she gets in return is Sylvain and the love that he has for her. She can fall into him and hold him for a moment and nothing else matters. 

“I should go,” she whispers. 

“No, you should stay,” he complains, wrapping his arms around her more tightly as he kisses up her cheek. 

Ingrid laughs and pushes his face away. “I need to get dressed, Sylvain.” She rubs her thumb against the corner of his mouth. “I’ll see you at the end of the aisle.”

He kisses her again. Her hair probably won’t be salvageable after this, but maybe Mercedes can work her magic with those roses she that she had mentioned earlier. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was mostly tired of Sylvain's father being the asshole, so I made went with the mom this time....I don't 100% love the ending I settled with, but I'm too tired to correct it now.


End file.
